1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rack mounting position management system and a rack mounting position management method.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, rack mount systems for mounting electronic devices, such as servers, in a rack have been in widespread use. In the case of using such a rack mount system, it is necessary to manage the mounting positions of electronic devices mounted in a rack. Up to now, the mounting positions of electronic devices are managed by a system administrator such that IDs are allocated to the respective electronic devices and a database in which the IDs are associated with the mounting positions is created. In this method, once the database is created, the mounting positions of the electronic devices can be easily recognized thereafter. However, if the number of electronic devices to be mounted in the rack is large, a huge amount of time and labor is required for the system administrator to create the database.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-003917 discloses a rack mount system which includes a rack-side I/F connection unit that transmits a unit ID indicating a mounting position to each unit of a rack, and a mounted device side I/F connection unit that receives the unit ID transmitted from the rack-side I/F connection unit to a mounted device which is mounted in the rack. In the rack mount system, the mounted device transmits the ID of the mounted device and the received unit ID to a management server, and a table for associating the ID of the mounted device with the received unit ID is created in the management server. The mounted device and the mounting position thereof can be easily managed by referring to the table.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-003917, however, the unit ID is 6-bit data, and each mounted device transmits the unit ID to the management server. Accordingly, it is necessary for the management server to calculate an actual mounting position (physical mounting position) from the unit ID. Furthermore, in order to calculate the actual mounting position, it is necessary for the system administrator to create a table showing 6-bit data of each unit ID indicating a stage of each unit. In other words, in the rack mount system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-003917, it is necessary for the system administrator to create a table for associating a unit ID with mounting position information indicating an actual mounting position. Therefore, if the number of mounted devices is large, a considerable amount of time and labor is required for the system administrator to create the table.